


Don't Be So Hard On Yourself

by JosieMarieVivianWilkins



Series: Gallavich Week 2015 [4]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-23
Updated: 2016-01-23
Packaged: 2018-05-15 15:31:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5790871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JosieMarieVivianWilkins/pseuds/JosieMarieVivianWilkins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Terry comes back. The aftermath sends Mickey and Mandy in to meltdown, affecting both of their lives and relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't Be So Hard On Yourself

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know how I feel about this. Kind of bleugh maybe. I'm tired. And I hate jukebox prompts with a fucking passion, but the storyline of this was something that I wanted to happen.  
> Kind of maybe using Jess Glynn's Don't Be So Hard On Yourself as inspiration? Kind of too tired to think of a better title? Kind of super sorry?  
> Also, not proof-read. Sorry.  
> Anyways, if my unenthused A/N hasn't deterred you from this story then go ahead and let me know what you thought.

It had been hard. If he was being honest with himself, hard didn’t even come close. In fact, unbearable only began to touch the surface of it. Mickey was now twenty seven and sitting in his lounge with Mandy sitting on one side of him and Ian on the other. Not four hours ago had they been knee-deep in dirt, blood on their hands, and a strong sense of apathy encasing the trio.

_Ian had gone round to Mickey’s (well, he guessed it was pretty much his place, too, given how much time he spent there in comparison to the Gallagher home), hunting his boyfriend down in hopes of being able to grab a lift across town to a job interview. It was then that Ian had found Mickey on the floor, blood pooled around him and various bruises and cuts littering his body. Terry lay across the room from Mickey, his head in a puddle of blood, his body motionless._

_“Ian!”_

_Ian turned slowly, still in shock and dazed, to see Mandy throwing a gun down and running at him. She threw herself at him, arms instantly wrapping around his waist as she cried in to his chest, words carrying through her sobs._

_“He… he got… let out… didn’t think… wouldn’t come back… I had to… he was… Mickey… I didn’t… I don’t know…” There was a small pause in Mandy’s sobs before she looked up to him with such child-like eyes and whimpered out, “Help.”_

After Mickey came round, they patched him up and got him some water and painkillers, along with at least a half a bottle of whiskey. It was a twenty minute back-and-forth of Mickey insisting he was fine and Mandy and Ian disagreeing before reason set in and they realised that Mickey had to help them whether they wanted him to or not. The three of them traipsed in to the back yard and began to dig, no alternative even crossing their minds that didn’t put Mandy in a cell for life. The sun dipped lower, light becoming an issue, and that was when they decided that they had dug far enough. The hole was almost five feet deep, and they were completely plastered in soil. Ian climbed out of the hole before reaching out to help Mandy, who was being lifted up by Mickey, out of the hole, and then to give Mickey a hand out.

Feelings had been put on hold. Emotions weren’t present. With night making their task harder, the three of them worked quickly to put Terry to rest and cover him up as quickly as he could. Litter strewn over the recently-moved dirt to blend it in with their yard and keep up with appearances, and then the three of them were back in the house. Mickey and Ian sat silently on the couch as Mandy showered, her tears audible over the pounding water and through the multitude of closed doors. Before anything could be said, Mickey had picked up the bottle of whiskey from beside the couch and taking a long swig before silently offering it to Ian, his eyes trained on the blood stain on the carpet across the room.

Four in the morning found the three of them drunk beyond comprehension and watching _Looney Tunes_ reruns.

The next week saw Mickey acting in the same manner, Mandy having retreated to the Gallagher home to seek solace and comfort in Lip. Mickey, though, he was broken beyond belief. Nobody but Ian knew that Mickey drunk and watching _Looney Tunes_ was Mickey trying to hide within his childhood, to attempt to regress from whatever current situation had completely derailed him. Being the caring boyfriend he was, Ian had called up the autoshop that Mickey had begun interning at a couple years ago, telling him that Mickey’s dad had been given only a day or two to live and that Mickey had gone to his bedside in a heartbeat and was now grieving the loss of his father.

Eventually, though, Mickey had to return to work. The dark-haired man walked out of the house and in to work with a smile plastered on his face. The grass began to grow again in patches, rain made the unearthed mud blend in and fill the cracks just that little bit better, and Mickey’s wounds healed. But Mickey’s smile remained there for many weeks. And that was how Mickey gave himself up. That guy very rarely smiled, and anyone who knew Mickey knew that.

He cracked when Ian asked him one day when he was going to get his broody Mickey back who never smiled, when their relationship was going to go back to what it had been before: simple.

“I don’t know, Ian! Maybe when my sister can look me in the eye! Maybe when I feel like me again! This isn’t me! It may be what my dad wanted, but it’s not who I’m supposed to be!” He cried, sitting up in bed and looking at Ian in anger and hurt. “I feel like there’s this darkness over me! Like… like I can’t get away from it. Every time I look in the mirror, every time I see the scar on my neck, every time I see Mandy. It’s my fault. Mandy can’t go to work. She can’t even pick up her own freakin’ kid to comfort it! It’s my fault Mandy’s like that! I’m the reason she shot ‘im, and I’m the reason she’s a freakin’ mess…” Mickey trailed off, his entire body shaking as a few silent tears had brimmed his eyes and threatened to fall. “I… help me, Ian…”

“Mickey, none of this is your fault. It’s Terry’s fault. For being an ass, for being an abusive drunk, for coming back. It’s all his fault. None of this is one. None of it.” Ian had sat up and wiped the one tear which had fallen on to Mickey’s cheek with his thumb, feeling his boyfriend flinch away harshly as he shook his head. “Mandy did that because she loves you, not because you made her or anything. You need to learn to forgive yourself, even for things that aren’t totally your fault, and you need to let others go. Terry: let him go.” A brief pause before Ian brought a hand to Mickey’s cheek and turned his face towards him. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. I need you. Mandy needs you. Even little Daisy needs you. So, like I said, don’t be so hard on yourself. Just… be you, and let yourself try to be happy. For all of us.” He pulled Mickey close and held him as he shook with suppressed sobs.

Just beneath Mickey’s sobs could a song be heard that was playing on the TV across the room.

 _Oh, oh, oh, I_  
_I learned to wave goodbye_  
 _How not to see my life_  
 _Through someone else's eyes_  
 _It's not an easy road_  
 _But now I'm not alone_  
 _So I… I won't be so hard on myself no more_

Mickey told Ian about everything that riled him up, everything that ate away at him, and everything that forced him in to a cycle of self-blame and misery. It had shocked Ian. He had always known Mickey had been kind of messed up – hell, he was South Side, they all were – but Mickey had done fucking amazingly to hide all that had burdened him for so long.

For six months after that, Mickey saw a counsellor (Ian went back to the Fairy Tale on weekends to pay for the sessions), and Mickey really blossomed. He was still the broody, hard thug that Ian had fallen in love with, but he was freer in himself. Happier.

It was all Ian wanted for him. For both of them.

With Terry gone, Mickey’s sessions almost over and Ian successfully stable for eighteen months, they were already so many steps closer to that than either of them had ever thought they would be. Someday, they would wave goodbye to the atrocities of their pasts and the horrors that the South Side held and they would start anew. But for now, the progression they had already made would allow them to just exist in peace for a while.

**Author's Note:**

> Eh. I dunno', but now I can move on to the prompts I actually want to do and have ideas for. So, onwards and upwards hopefully!


End file.
